Be a Benevolent Dictator (and 8 More Lessons for Getting Your Stalled Startup Off the Ground)

By Michael Feuer

“Be your own boss.” Its a version of the American Dream that most people have fantasized about. Unfortunately, to many would-be entrepreneurs, getting past the dreaming phase and into the doing phase seems insurmountable especially in a shaky economy where quitting your day job seems foolhardy and funding seems scarcer than, well, pay raises and affordable health insurance.

In reality, the iron is not just hot, its smoking. And if you dont strike now, someone else just might beat you to it.

The perfect time to make your move is when everyone else is afraid to. Its a lot like investing in the stock market once everyone else starts jumping on the bandwagon, youve missed the window.

The truth is, entrepreneurial success isnt rocket science. It requires a great idea, the chutzpah to pull the trigger, and the determination and discipline to create and stack the building blocks needed to get from point A to point B and from point B all the way to Z.

Once youve made the decision to take your stalled startup idea off the shelf, blow away the dust and move it into the marketplace, youll need to know what to do and, just as importantly, what not to do. Here are nine tested and true tips and insights for getting the job done right.

1. Youll need to rule your startup like a benevolent dictator. Its not as scary as it sounds. The benevolent” part means always putting the entity, the employees, and, most importantly, the customer, first. In other words, youre focused foremost on doing the right thing for the right reasons, for all stakeholders. The dictator” piece simply means that somebody in a new venture (i.e., you) has to recognize when debate, conversation and analysis cant take you any farther. At that time you have to decide, Were taking this fork in the road, for better or worse, and its on my head.”

Being the benevolent dictator provides the critical leadership necessary to take an idea and transform it into reality as fast as possible. Remember, beating the competition is never easy. Someone has to be willing to make the important decisions when it counts.

2. If you dont ask, you wont get. Whether youre asking an employee to go the extra mile, asking a vendor for a discounted price or pitching a business concept to an investor, you have to be willing to put yourself out there. Though most entrepreneurs dont like asking others for help, they must learn to live with the process, because its a stark reality of growing a company.

Asking is certainly much more difficult than getting; however, it becomes much easier if you can learn how to make a strong presentation and tell your story. Attention, interest, desire and action are the key elements of selling you can ask for or tell just about anything as long as you do so honestly and spell out the good, the bad and the ugly.

3. No” means maybe.” The no” you receive the first nine times is merely a disguised maybe” beause the other guy is looking for a reason why not to proceed or doesnt understand what youre asking. Its only after the 10^th time when the other person hangs up on you or walks out of the room and slams the door that no” really means no.”

Hearing no” simply means that you havent effectively or passionately explained what you need or adequately expressed how your success will translate to their success. Obviously, youll have to be tactful. You certainly dont want to alienate potential investors, customers or employees by harassing them for a more favorable answer. But you dont have to take no” for an answer either.

4. Always look at a new idea through your customers eyes. Today customers have the power and they know it. No longer do they have to accept inferior products and dismal service. In our world of almost instant computer-driven communications, blogs, chat rooms, Tweets, Facebook pages and apps galore, the consumer has come of age. There is a fast growing movement afoot and customers of the 21st century will not be denied.

Whatever kind of business youre running whether its a retailer, software development firm, restaurant, accounting firm or manufacturer its imperative to listen to what your customers are really saying when they tell you what they want from your business. You must learn how to think like your customers and see things through their eyes, not just yours. In essence, you must create an environment, a product offering and a way of doing business that makes you the company of choice.

5. The journey had better be as much fun as the destination. Many a great entrepreneur has been derailed by burnout. Its an affliction that can be caused by many factors, but which ultimately boils down to too much focus on the final outcome and an inability to enjoy the day-to-day elements of being an entrepreneur. In short, you have to enjoy the journey as much as you enjoy reaching the destination. If you dont, you might make it there, but you wont last long once you get there.

Start the day by handling the most difficult or unpleasant tasks first. With those out of the way, take a management walkabout checking with staff members at all levels. Then move on to thinking time, meeting with colleagues or sometimes just schmoozing, bonding or focusing on new and better ways to get things done.

Its important to shape your day-to-day work in a way that allows you to have some fun. By getting the hard stuff out of the way early, you dont have to work with a sense of dread and youre freed up to enjoy the rest of the day. Build some fun into every day, and youll stay refreshed and focused on making your business the best it can be.

6. Let Mother” do the hiring. Bad hires are not only disruptive to businesses, theyre also expensive. According to a variety of studies, the cost of firing senior or middle-management personnel can be as high as 300 percent of that persons annual salary and in some cases even higher. This includes the cost of finding a replacement, training, and the ancillary emotional and unsettling peripheral and disruptive effects. How can you stack the deck in your favor when making a new hire? Listen to your mother.

If there is a voice in your head that sounds like your mother and its advising you not to hire a certain candidate, the voice is probably just your entrepreneurial instinct telling you to proceed with caution. But beyond the Mother Rule, there are ways to get job candidates to reveal their own crucial character traits.

One way to vet candidates is to ask them to provide a letter of interest outlining why they think they can get the job done and what it would take to get them to join the organization. This shows how the candidate thinks and articulates ideas and concepts, as well as showing if he or she is thorough and has a sense of urgency by responding in a timely fashion.

7. Dont drink your own bathwater. When success is reached, history tends to be rewritten about who did what and why, and how victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat. At a certain level, this is all well and good. The problem arises when the true story gets filtered down and the lessons from the experience lose their meaning because theyre not accurate or theyre too vague. This makes it increasingly difficult to apply what you learned to similar future efforts. If something didnt work and no one remembers why, youre usually destined to repeat past mistakes.

Whether you have hit your stride or have reached a milestone, its imperative to remember one thing: If you dont remain hungry to achieve continued success, youll soon find yourself believing that you are as great as your last success. Moreover, if you do that, you could drown drinking your own bathwater or make bad mistakes because you trusted without verifying.

8. Know when its time to pull the plug. One of the biggest dilemmas for any entrepreneur, CEO or business owner is to know when enough is enough. There are peaks and valleys in virtually every company and industry. The trick for an owner is to understand these vacillations and know when its time for you to sell to the highest bidder, of course.

The key to fulfillment and continued success is knowing how and when to reinvent ones business and even personal life. Its all about looking for that new twist or turn that might ignite a new burning in the belly.

9. Know how to put lightning back in the bottle again and again. It is absolutely possible to be a repeat entrepreneurial success. Most successful second-act players have honed their instincts and skills and created a series of methodical steps that they follow. They understand how to get from A to Z while minimizing pain and wasted motions and maximizing available capital. Experience has taught them where to spend the most time and effort to ensure that they meet or beat others expectations as well as their own.

Many successful entrepreneurs and operators live to work rather than work to live. They love the challenge, thrive on naysayers telling them it cant be done and get great satisfaction in proving the pessimists wrong. They put lightning back in the bottle because they know they can. Theres nothing more gratifying than starting from scratch and building a meaningful and relevant business and if its a giant, so much the better.

Navigating a startup venture is about as close as you can get to a 24/7 ride on the worlds scariest roller coaster. Every morning, when the entrepreneur gets out of bed, its showtime. And every evening, when that same would-be tycoon restlessly drifts off to sleep, he or she says a silent prayer, giving thanks for the fact that they have survived the preceding 18 hours or so and asking to be granted the strength to fight another day.

If that sounds like an exhilarating life to you and if youre prepared to lead and to put the interests of your customers and employees ahead of your own why not go for it? Take a chance. Pull the trigger. Start building something great. It doesnt matter whats going on in the economy. If youre feeling that burning in the belly, there will never be a better time than now.

Michael Feuer
co-founded OfficeMax in 1988 starting with one store and $20,000 of his own money, a partner and a small group of investors. As CEO, he grew it to more than 1,000 stores worldwide with annual sales topping $5 billion. He is also CEO of Max-Ventures, a venture capital and retail consulting firm, and co-founder and CEO of Max-Wellness, a comprehensive health and wellness retail chain that launched in 2010. He authored

The Benevolent Dictator: Empower Your Employees, Build Your Business, and Outwit the Competition”  with contributor and editor Dustin S. Klein, publisher and executive editor of Smart Business Network.